Ah, the wonderful words that are screamed from my frustrated 6 year old's mouth.
"I HATE YOU MUM! You don't even WANT to be a Mum! You're a bad mother!"
It's hard not to take those words to heart. It can be a very difficult thing to handle. The older your kids get, and the wiser you get, some of us understand the reasons behind those words.
She WANTS to stay up late, and she doesn't understand why she must go to bed at the time that you tell her - even if she's previously agreed to that particular time of night for a bed time. When she is woken up by you in the morning with a "Come on, you have to get up or you'll be late for school", you are met with dislike and disdain. Mine even throws it back at me when I've given in the previous night and let her stay up.
"It's all YOUR fault Mum, YOU should have made me to go to bed on TIME!".
One of the hardest lessons to learn as a parent is that, no matter what you do and what decisions you make as a parent, you can't please everyone. If your child goes to bed at 8pm, those who send their children to bed at 7 will believe it's too late. Those who send their kids to bed at 9 will believe it to be too early. If you smack, if you don't smack, if you choose public school, if you choose private school, if you give your kid lollies, chips, McDonalds, if you feed your child nothing but healthy food.... there's always going to be people who disagree with you. The sooner you learn THIS lesson and focus on your beliefs as a parent and NOT trying to make everyone happy, the happier you and your kids will be.
Master Cooper is currently toilet training. He isn't 2 until August, but he has had some success already and we're only a few days in. Sure, there are wees in the nappy. There are SO many people who have said that he's too young, and that I'm starting too early. Miss M wasn't toilet trained until she was 4. She just wasn't interested. Cooper, however, is very interested, and is motivated by adding a new sticker to his Thomas chart (Thomas the Tank Engine) that we have taped to the wall next to the toilet.
This morning, he wouldn't let me put a nappy on him - he ran to the toilet, sat down (with my help), and promptly did a wee. I made a HUGE fuss over it, and he was thrilled!
Parenting is a lot of ups and downs. Last night we were at the hospital after Master Cooper decided it was hilarious to put peas in his ears. After a couple of hours' wait at the hospital, the doctor quite cheerfully fished them out - much to Cooper's delight. He LOVED the feeling of having his ears scratched so deeply, he must have had itchy ears!!
So we continue on the toilet-training path, despite the nay-sayers. I'm not expecting instant learning, but he's definitely got the idea.
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